Thursday, December 08, 2005

The new Harry Potter movie

So Mr. Fraulein and I had a rare night out sans Peanut recently, and we went to see the new Harry Potter "Goblet of Fire" movie. I have to say I was pretty disappointed. I'm re-reading the book now, and I'm struck once again by how economical and powerful J.K. Rowling's writing is. There is so much more going on there than they could manage to cram into a two-hour-plus movie, so the movie ends up being simply a series of vignettes of interesting scenes from the book. These scenes were interesting in themselves, and certainly the teenage actors' performances are improving, but it was still a disappointment when compared to the all-encompassing world of the books. Even though I know those kid actors would have been in their late 20s by the time they finished the movie series had they done this, I still kind of wish they had split Goblet into two movies.

I can't wait for the movie version of "Order of the Phoenix." I hope they don't screw that one up, because I think it's the best of the books so far.